her body contained several variations of organic chlorines designed to attack nervous systems of insects. i never bought it. isn't that trespassing. i tell this in my story of mary broon. mary never felt called to be an environmentalist she was nursing her 6 month daughter olivia and a story had been done by texas tech where they looked at breast milk samples, all were contaminated with rocket fuel. i was stunned, i thought breast

milk was as pure as it came for food source. i was up all night thinking about it. i tell the story about michelle from california whose family was the first family to be monitored in the oakland tribune. it stunned even scientists. the tests found many of the same chemicals they found in charlotte's 5-year-old mic ala, she had recently spent a lot of time in nail salons. the biggest surprise of what they found in 2-year-old rowland, chemicals found in nearly anyone else in the world 6 times higher than in parents, twice the levels that researchers see in land animals.

this is a serious warning said a scientist researchers on flame retar tkapbts. young children are exposed because they put their hands in their mouth and bodies don't eliminate chemicals as readily. to me i think very historically crystallizes what we are learning. that was a story in 2006 by the environmental working group where they analyzed the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies and found an average of 200 chemicals found to be toxic in every single baby, man made synthetic chemicals. when we see this picture that

babies are being born into the world polluted with industrial chemicals it is time to say how can we do things differently? how can we do things differently? that is the question that essentially we took to the world's largest beauty companies starting in 2003 letters, phone calls. who thinks the companies were wanting to have this conversation? unfortunately they weren't. we encountered a lot of evasion, excuses. first they ignored us. increasingly they are having to have this conversation because people are become withing more concerned and the companies are having to face up to it. i think, you know, when we see this information, too, we realize, all of us are

contaminated, we understand the choices we make intimately affect our biology, the same poisons running through the rivers are running through our veins, especially the billion dollar corporations that are selling dreams of health and beauty around the world. they have a have a responsibility. does anybody think baby shampoo needs to contain carcinogens? many companys are making these products without the chemicals. when we look at testing of baby products, most of the brands and this is poplar bubble baths contained a known animal

carcinogen, it was in seasame street character brands, and johnson & johnson brand baby shampoo. this is some of the lipstick products. some of you may have seen we had a bill in california industry, they said we can't get lead out of lipstick. but it is not in 39 percent of the products that we tested including this $1.99 wet and wild but found $8 lorel and and

$24 lipstick. what we see consistently is that even the high end brands, you are paying for packaging and marketing. everybody likes to ask about cliniq u e if you go into a macies, you'll see the lab white coats and scientifically presented. it is the same set of chemicals packaged with a different marketing program. disturbing some of the women of color are among the most toxic. women are bombarded with light skinned looking models.

every product claims to have a whitening benefit. here is an example of one of the ads that you'll see in china, procter and gamble, high end line sk 2, hugely poplar, this product was the cause of near riots in china in 2006 after the government reported it contained, band heavy metal. hundreds of women demanding refunds lined up down the block. here is an example of them busting down the headquarters in shanghai. women do not want toxic bad

metals. in their $100 skin cream. unfortunately, the government and procter and gamble was freaked out about this. then it was announceable, just a little bit of toxic metals, don't worry. they put the products back on the shelf and back on the market. china is the no. 1 growth market for procter and gamble. have quotes where she says china is no. 2 mark and going for no. 1 and do it by marketing our products to millions of villages across china. that is the mentality of the company, all about growth and convincing us that we need more products. these are also in the most toxic categories and increasingly marketed to younger and younger girls. this is an example of a 5 or 7

year old on the cover of a skin, hair relaxer. these are ratings, that is the most toxic hair relaxers and no. 1 is a kid's product. then for hair dye, younger and younger girls are getting hair dye. "new york times", girls 10 and 11 are getting their hair dyed into the salon. it used to be 15 or 16. the industry was excited. this represent as growth market for the industries. it also represents age and continued chemical exposures to many of these toxins for young girls and more exposures to the environment as hair dyes get

into the waterway and food even if we don't get our hair dyed. our skin should be lighter and darkers, smoother, lips plumper, these companies have so much power over our minds, public space and sense of self as they continue to expose us to chemicals even though safer alternatives are available. we have the power. we have the power to decide which products we put on our body and which companies we support with our money. that is actually a real power that can feel very very good when you start to take advantage of it. ahrolt a lot of this

information is scary and real. i tell people, i do get to the good news around chapter 10. there is a lot of good news to share. i have heard so many amazing stories along the way. 30 cities in 13 states. 3,000 people come out to these talks. there is just an amazing energy. and so many just wonderful store reus about people engaging in this work, people who have been to skin deep and start their own company or change their major. people making radical decisions about their own personal life styles. i like to tell this story of my

kus cousin janet, 45, vice president at wells fargo. she was queen makeup diva. i was baby diva. she admitted to me she was spending $800 a month on beauty products. it was hair dye and facials and the most expensive products, ever. she read the book and started to feel overwhelmed and discovered this superexpensive evening cream had hydroevo. it makes your skin tingle, so you think something is happening. she went back to the makeup

counters and have polite conversations, hey, i think you can do better. until you do i'm going to buy something else. she decided to stop coloring her hair after many, many years and loves the way she looks and feels better than she has in a long time. when i heard about the stuff, i was mad about the chemicals, when i start to think about it, i realized, i was exhausted with trying to keep up with looking 10 years younger than i am and not working any way. she felt liberated. that emotional journey. this sense of freedom and personal empowerment. that is the place i want us to get to. i am going to close with a couple of stories about the

wonderful amazing things i was seen along the way that i think are the signs that we are really making huge changes and doing it together. every single person that took time out of their saturday is part of that movement and together we can do anything and we are changing the beauty industry. the power of information, this is skin deep. an amazing resource. you should check it out. almost 30,000 products matched up with 50 government data bases and see how they score 0 to 10 on the toxicity month. if you look up shampoos, this is the most toxic and who is at the top of the list, loreal

kids' shampoo. there are many, many companies on this list that are making safer shampoos. this the first that comes up in skin deep. more companies coming out with great new products and all sorts of thing that is you didn't get in the natural space that is available. the good news is innovation, paul, the father of new chemistry. he is way too young to be the father of green chemistry. he is in his mid 40's and now

teaching at yale. just got married to the woman that does the green design at yale. both programs are about a year old. the universities are finally trying to get this. amy on the right is the first chemist -- last year more women graduated than men. we have the technologies to figure this out. we need to get the billion dollar beauty companies supporting this research. of course the power of act vision, opi nail products. they are the largest seller of

largest products worldwide, 70 countries. they are using -- why don't you take it out of your u.s. products. they weren't too keen on that. we think the europeans are crazy. opi has fun names like i am not really a waitress red. we decided to do a spoof and we came up with our own names, like i can't believe it is a carcinogen. we dressed up with sashes that said mistreatment. this all happened in may, by

august the company announced they were taking out formaldehyde and now advertising all of their products are free of those chemicals. >> [applause]. >> that was a huge victory and it show that is we can change the industry, they are responsive and they can change on a dime relatively quickly. we have products and they work wonderfully and the prices didn't go. there is an initial resistance, we see it is possible to change this industry and happening very quickly. so i want to commend everybody that has worked on that and everybody who has chosen to think about the research and what they are using. one last reading from the book,

this theme and what is possible to do together. this is the- chapter of my book, extreme make over, we need to give the beauty industry, u.s. government and economy a make over. this is a story about 2 of my favorite she ras. the women went to a share holding meeting and carrying 5,000 brooms. in india a broom is a woman's power. by delivering brooms, we are telling them to clean up their mess. chemical melt down spent 20 tons of gas into their city. they are leading the fight to

send justice to their people and the worst fate. mothers carry poisons in their breasts. she accepted the 2004 environmental prize. we are not expendable. we are not flowers offered at the profit and power. we are dancing flames commitmented to darkness and the magic and mystery of life. women have long been slain at the environmental health and justice, from rachel to louis and the family of love canal. to the women of india and around the world fighting to clean up dangerously

contaminated community. today more women have more power than ever before, especially more economic power and political power, women can shift the balance of power and change the face of the future. we are the once we have been waiting for as the poet june jordan. if we can bring ourselves to great clarity as to cause and effect. the environment is us, it is our wombs, our breast milk and families. our children to thrive in our bodies, unpolluted. the beauty industry and on to

the next clean up project, the plastic industry, oil and war industries, too until there are no more toxic chemicals in babies, no more rocket fuel in breast milk or communities burdened by pollution. that is the work before us and that is what we are here to do and thank you so much for joining me for beauty and make over.

on the same page is our monthly actually bimonthly book club that the library sponsors. this month, march, the book of the month is the samari gardens.

how many are you have read this book in >> that's fabulous and gale is blushing in front of me. it's my pleasure to introduce gale. gale was born and raised in san francisco. her combined ancestory a chinese mother from hong kong and japanese father from hawaii gave her a unique asspect much the language of threads, dreaming water and others. please, help me welcome gale sukiama. [applause] >> so that means if you have read the book you will not be buying the book? [laughter]. i'm always feel a little embarrassed because i looked back and i kept think

thanksgiving book was published in 1993 who wants to hear about it now? i feel honored that we call it those in the know or good friends of mine call at this time energizer bunny. it's the book that somehow kept going all these yeersz. i will tell you up front it was a book i thought that may be they wouldn't publish. my very first book was women of the silk. i knew that i was writing about something that was a little bit different because i didn't know about the women of the silk until i wanted to write something telling their story much the second book is the test book for us writers you hear that a lot where the publishers are wondering if the author has a second book. everybody here i feel sitting here all of you have one book in you. whether it's a family story or your story whether it's

ancestors whether it's your history you want to write about. but it's the second one that's hard. i felt that when i turnod the computer and thought, now i have to write book number 2. i had in mind that i wanted to write something very different from women of the silk that was strictly about the feminist chinese women during the turn of the century and i wanted to write about my japanese culter. i didn't have the story or the culture unfortunately because i was born in san francisco, half chinese and half japanese but raised in the chinese culture. when it was time to write the second book and i knew i wanted to explore my japanese side it was going to be difficult in the

way that i didn't know the culture. right away i had to learn a lot. it was something that was not engrained in me besides the story. i sat down and thought about the story my mother told me about her brother being ill. he at one point went from hong kong to japan to recuperate. he was the one that wanted to be an artist and wanted to paint. i thought about that because it must have been hard growing up in hong kong to be far away from everything and have a dream and get sick at this point. i thought u is there a story here? that's the way it begins for writers. people think things jump out and we have it in our head. it's the opposite we have nothing in our head. we turn on the machine and

praying for something to come. with women of the silk i researched for 6 amongs and read and read and read. in one book i found 2 lines about the woman silk workers and knew immediately that's hai wanted to write about. it came to me like a dream that every writer prays for that you just knew you wanted to write about this. with the second book it was difficult i sat down and didn't know what i was going to write for about 6 months. which was fearful for me because of the fact i knew i didn't have the second book. steven's story, i asked myself questions. a lot of writers do that that's usually how i begin. what did he do? who did he meet when he got off the train? who was this man servant? what was his life about? it all began with the seeds and

the particular questions, as simple as that. although, then, i had to answer them. what i had done is i usual low don't work with an out line. a lot of writers do they will out line what will happen and sometimes they have to because like if you are writing a mystery you need to write out the plot. i write about characters the characters drive the story. when that hatched i sat down and said, what happens is, a, he arrived and gets off the train what's going to happen. >> i know z, he would get on the train and leave at the evented book. i didn't know the alphabet in between. i was nervous and i took one step at a time very japanese like. i began to study and read everything i could find on the japanese culture. the incredible thing was